1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to presser feet for sewing machines and more particularly to an improved sewing machine foot for use in sewing slide fasteners to garments.
2. Prior Art
As is well known in the art, conventional presser feet of the type described were each provided in its lower face with a longitudinal groove or recess adapted to receive and guide a row of fastener elements mounted on a marginal edge of a stringer tape. Since however the grooves of the prior art presser feet have predetermined space dimensions such that the element rows can be guided slidably therethrough, they have suffered from the difficulty that the element rows slip down out of engagement with the grooves when the presser feet are lifted away from the feed plates of the sewing machines in order to mount the element rows in the presser foot grooves or insert the garments between the presser feet and the feed plates. A greater difficulty has been experienced with the so-called two-needle sewing machines which utilize such presser feet having a pair of element-guiding grooves and adapted for sewing simultaneously a pair of fastener stringers to each marginal edge of the opening in the garment. More specifically, putting the pair of tape-mounted element rows in place in the pair of grooves of the presser foot while the latter is being lifted, has to be done with both hands; that is, one element row is inserted into one of the pair of grooves using either the left or right hand, and then the other element row is mounted in the other foot groove by the other hand, during which time either of the two hands of the operator must be used to retain the previously inserted element row in engagement with the foot goove, so as to prevent the tape-carried element rows from being dropped out of the grooves of the presser foot. This element-insertion procedure is further complicated where the concealed type of slide fastener is sewn to the garment, since additional care must be taken to raise the tape-mounted element rows away from the surface of the stringer tape in order to insert the element rows into position in the presser foot grooves.